Nosebleed
by JukeboxJulia
Summary: For the most part, the things Polly Cooper overhears at Thornhill make her skin crawl or make her somehow loathe the Blossoms even more. But some things make her creep down the hallway in the dead of night to comfort Cheryl Blossom, of all people. Oneshot.


**It feels cold to just drop a fanfiction out here without an author's note, so I'll preface this by saying that this is something that happens sometime between when they find out Polly's having twins and when she leaves Thornhill.**

 **Also, Penelope Blossom deserves to rot in hell forever.**

 _Poisonous_.

That was the word her mother had chosen to describe Thornhill and Polly could feel, in the dead of night and in the broad light of day, that her mother had chosen the word very aptly.

It always felt like midnight in the great Gothic mansion, like the shadows were too long and the sunlight was in short supply. The darkly-clad walls lent themselves to an eternal nighttime and the décor, while fine and expensive, was still eerie and sometimes nightmarish. Every second she had to spend in that house made her skin crawl even more, and most days, almost every word that came out of a Blossom's mouth made her loathe them even more.

Now, though, at nine o'clock at night, Polly's vast and regal room in Thornhill felt more unbearable than usual.

Polly had heard hushed but angry whispers from down the hall or maybe upstairs or even in the next room. It was impossible to tell. They were females, she could tell, presumably Cheryl and Penelope, or else some other horrid she-demon who'd stowed away in the endless shadows of the house with ease and stalked its halls like the owners.

She'd heard the muffled sounds of the mother and daughter's altercations before, but struggled to make out the exact words or their location, despite her longing to investigate every inch of the Blossom family. This time, however, the house's massive ventilation system seemed to be in her favor, lured the voices into her bedroom.

She caught her late fiancé's name come up several times, the word "cursed", the word "devil", and talk of twins—either hers or Penelope's—before the voices came to an abrupt halt, leaving those evil words hanging in the air and in Polly's head like a heavy, toxic gas.

Were her children cursed? Doomed to the same misfortune that seemed to follow the Blossoms—and now maybe, too, the Coopers by association—like hungry wolves of the trail of a tiring, wavering prey animal?

Polly sat on the dark bed in the dark room, trying desperately to take her mind off of her cursed children or Jason's tragic demise or Penelope's hateful words echoing in her ears.

She just wanted to breathe.

Breath, of course, did not come.

Not with the Penelope's words hanging in the air like a devastating fog.

Polly can't tell how much time has passed before the voices start up again, Penelope hissing with anger and Cheryl quietly but pointedly refuting words that Polly can't make out from the other side of the wall.

Penelope is ruthless; Polly can easily picture her face twisted in anger, spitting words through gritted teeth at her daughter. She doesn't stop her quiet rage until her voice raises and Polly can make out, unmistakably, Penelope's final insult.

" _You don't know how many times, how badly I wish it was you."_

Polly holds her breath as those biting words are followed by the sound of something scraping on the floor above, then a louder crash.

Then silence.

Polly slowly and nervously draws breath again, her breathing the only thing audible in the dark. She focuses on that, her stressed and jagged breathing, and the slightest bit of light that she can see from the moon out her window.

Just as she's used to her breathing pattern in the dark, the sound of water running in the hall bathroom shocks Polly's ears.

She can't think of anything to do except follow it. Maybe she'll get closer to finding out if the Blossoms really killed Jason, maybe her maternal instincts are kicking in already and she wants to find Cheryl, maybe she just doesn't want to be alone in the dark room in the dark house anymore.

No matter the reason, Polly rises from her bed and creeps down the hall, the floor of the mansion as cold as its inhabitants on her cold feet.

Outside the bathroom door, Polly listens to the water run and gathers her confidence.

Underneath the sound of the water, Polly can hear Cheryl crying—weeping, really—softly enough to go mostly unnoticed but desperately enough that Polly can hear her gasping for breath.

She pushes open the door with one hand.

Cheryl holds her breath and whirls, the tears still running down her face.

The tears, even mixed with the girl's mascara and carrying black streams down her face, aren't what catches Polly's attention.

What catches Polly's attention is the blood.

Blood running unceasingly from Cheryl's nose, red as her signature lipstick, falling in parallel ribbons down her philtrum where they mixed with water and spread across her face like rivers or veins to mix with her black tears. Whatever effort Cheryl was making to clean herself up had failed.

Polly had mentally prepared to greet Cheryl gently and nonchalantly. Instead, she barely manages a choked "Oh my God…"

Cheryl's eyes are reddened and raw and bloodshot and caught somewhere between anger and horror.

"Polly!" she cries, one hand rushing up to cover her bloodied face. "I thought you were asleep."

Polly ignored Cheryl's attempt at ease took three quick steps toward the redhead. When Cheryl didn't move, Polly took hold of her raised wrist and guided it down to reveal the poorly-hidden injury.

Cheryl flinched a bit at Polly's touch—who wouldn't, given the events Polly had just overheard—but let her examine the injury.

"It looks worse than it feels," Cheryl claimed.

"What happened?" Polly asked, praying internally that she'd somehow majorly misconstrued what she'd heard, that her ears had betrayed her and that Penelope wasn't responsible for the blood.

Cheryl stands, openmouthed, blood gratuitously covering her face from her nose to her teeth, trying to think of a way to answer.

"Did your mother…" Polly ventures, horrified.

"No. No." Cheryl shakes her head a bit, but anyone could tell she's lying. When Polly doesn't break eye contact, Cheryl whispers a _yes_ before rapidly returning to _no_. "I mean, kind of," she finally admits quietly, "but not really."

Polly turns to the sink and wets a washcloth with warm water. "Explain then," she requests as Cheryl gratefully takes the cloth and begins to mop up her face.

"She barely touched me," Cheryl says. Polly cocks her head inquisitively, unsure if Cheryl is lying or if she honestly believes what she's saying. "It was me. It was. She just…" Her voice tightens and she hesitates. "She just shoved me a little. I fell and tripped and hit the wall. This is my fault."

She brushes past Polly and runs the washcloth under the water, rinsing the blood from the fabric and creating a pool of pink water in the basin before the drain sucks it all away, save for the streaks of red on the basin walls.

"It's not your fault," Polly says immediately, instinctively.

Cheryl scoffs and continues to dab the cloth against her left nostrils, her eyes fixed on her own reflection in the mirror.

"It's not," Polly insists.

Cheryl remains silent, examining her reflection in the mirror, brushing her hands against her nose and under her eyes, probably wondering if there would soon be a bruise.

"Jason—" Polly starts, but pauses, both her and Cheryl silently shocked by the dead boy's name. "Jason told me that he was scared to leave.:

Cheryl's eyes finally wander from her own face to somewhere near Polly's feet.

"He was, uh, he was scared for you," she continues, stepping toward Cheryl, whose face is half covered by the bloody cloth, but whose eyes are now locked on Polly's, fully attentive. "He said he was afraid to leave you alone with your parents. With your mother."

Cheryl's face hardens and she drops the cloth from her face to the sink. "Yeah, no shit."

Polly felt stupid—the Blossom parents treated Cheryl poorly and Jason was her protector, as anyone could see. Cheryl didn't need to be told that her brother's departure was something to be feared.

"He spoke very highly of you," Polly tries, wanting to make Cheryl meet her eyes again.

Cheryl bites her lip and her gaze falls to the sink, but she says nothing.

"I can see why," Polly continues. "You really didn't ask any questions? As to why he was running away, I mean?"

"No."

"You must've loved him very much," Polly says tenderly, letting one hand wander onto Cheryl's shoulder.

"I did," Cheryl huffs. "Clearly, that was a mistake."

Polly just stares.

"He told me point-blank that you two had broken up," Cheryl confesses.

"We did break up, for a while," Polly told her.

"Uh-huh," Cheryl says dryly. "But he never told me that you were back together. Or planning a life together… He never told me about the baby—babies, I guess—and he never told me he was leaving me to—" Cheryl's voice broke and she promptly shut her mouth and locked her lips. She thrust the washcloth into the sink and stared down furiously at the bloody water gathering at the drain.

Polly steps forward. She rinses the cloth and wrings it out. Blood is already running onto Cheryl's lips as she stands stock-still with her eyes closed, too pained, it seemed, to even move.

To fight the feeling of guilt that was rising in her chest, Polly positions herself at Cheryl's side, holds her shoulder comfortingly, and wipes her face clean of both blood and tears.

She listens to Cheryl talk, to her words and her way of speaking, Cheryl's voice always rising, words swelling with emotion by the end of a sentence and almost always edged with anger. Polly listens, attentive and patient, as Cheryl recounts her times with Jason fondly or vents her fury about him, taking note when she learns something about her late fiancé and comparing what stories Cheryl tells her with the same ones she'd heard before, from Jason's mouth.

When Cheryl falls silent and Polly has nothing else she feels would be in her place to say, Polly tends to Cheryl's wound in silence; Cheryl's eyes are glossy and red, fixated on the mirror and staring at nothing while Polly's attention is on her unborn children and the boy who should have been alive to father them.

Polly finally rinses out the washcloth and the sink and the two go their separate ways to bed, leaving the porcelain of the sink pristine and white and without any trace of blood.


End file.
